1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to deposition of sample materials using a laser or other illumination beam.
2. Description of Related Art
Manipulation of material samples is important in a variety of fields, such as in automated proteomic, genomic, and other biotech-related research. Commonly, material samples are handled in liquid form using a variety of different types of liquid handling apparatus, such as pipettors, robotically-manipulated liquid handling tools, spotting devices, etc. To improve processing times, sample density or other features, particularly in automated research operations, sample sizes have been made progressively smaller and smaller. In some case, standard liquid handling apparatus, such as hand-held pipettors, are not suitable for manipulating small sample volumes, such as nanoliter-sized samples.